


then there's you

by Trillian_Astra



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Character Death, M/M, a gun is mentioned, hopefully not as depressing as those tags make it look, mention of depression, mention of drug overdose, mention of drug use, some violence, spoilers through end of s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1984836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the Undead Prophet gave Simon a purpose, but that was before he met Kieren.</p><p>the Undead Prophet gave Simon a task, and now Simon has a choice to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	then there's you

You spend a lifetime convinced that you are nothing, and you swallow, smoke and inject the contents of a good-sized pharmacy because why not? What else is there to do?

*

Your parents stand at your grave on a wet Sunday morning and leave flowers.

*

Something dark and Other hauls you back into your body, and compels you to movement. You drag yourself out of the grave one night, and you walk. It’s so dark, everything is so dark, you can’t see anything, can’t hear anything, there is only the Other that whispers to you and tells you to hunt.

*

A drug fizzes through your veins and awakens pathways in your brain, and you recognise other humans again, and you speak your first, halting words in a voice that is roughened from long disuse.

Two men in white coats say _you are the first one it worked on_ and _do you want to help us_ , and you say you will, because you don’t see an alternative.

*

A voice comes to you, and tells you that there is more, that you can be more. You don’t know if you can trust it.

*

Your father visits, and won’t look at you. You discover what you did, and you wish that the Other that brought you back had left you where you were.

Your father takes you home, and you try to act as though everything is normal, and you sleep one night in your old bedroom, decorated with posters of bands that you haven’t listened to for years.

*

You sleep rough for a few nights, with everything you have left in a backpack, before you find them.

There are others like you, people who were hauled back into the world. They take you in and give you a place to sleep.  One of them says _tomorrow you’ll meet the prophet_.

*

The Undead Prophet says they can change the world. They say that the risen, the undead, the redeemed are _chosen_ , they are special, and that they should fight back against the living who would persecute them.

The Undead Prophet looks at you and smiles. _You will be the Twelfth_ , they say, and from that moment you are not simply you, but you are also the Twelfth Disciple, and people look up to you.

*

The First Risen is important, they tell you. There will be a Second Rising, they say, and it will be greater even than the First, but the First Risen must be found for it to happen.

Your task, you learn, is to find the First Risen.

*

You meet a sweet girl named Amy, who comes from a place named Roarton. It is thought that the First Risen rose in Roarton, and so you go there.

*

The redeemed of Roarton Valley gather to you, and you hear their stories and you try to inspire them. Amy takes you to a cemetery and introduces you to a boy named Kieren. He is trying to look like one of the living, but you look at him in his baggy clothes and his cover-up and his contact lenses and you think about how beautiful he looks.

*

_I found the First Risen. You should see him, he’s… beautiful._

*

Kieren kisses you in the street outside his family’s house, and for a moment you can almost remember how it felt to be alive.

*

The Prophet tells you that for the Second Rising to occur, the First Risen has to die.

You don’t know if you can do it. You carry around a knife and the weight of a decision that you don’t know if you can make.

*

It comes to a head in a cemetery. All you see is a gun pointed at Kieren , and you make your choice without thinking about it. You vault the cemetery wall, you sprint towards him, you hear a gun fire and throw yourself in front of him.

You are vaguely aware of a bullet tearing into your back, but you do not feel it. All you can see and hear is Kieren underneath you. You reach to touch his face, letting the knife fall in doing so.

You help him to his feet and the two of you stagger out of the cemetery. You hear someone cry out, something about the second rising, and you tell them firmly that it isn’t happening.

*

The same words keep running through your head, something that you once said to Kieren. _There’s what I believe, and then there’s you_.

You’ve made your choice.

 

 

 


End file.
